GAM cracks down on beggars impersonating waste collectors

AMMAN — The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) is implementing a campaign during Ramadan to warn citizens against beggars impersonating waste collectors to ask for money.

The municipality has appointed police personnel and employees from the municipality's environmental department to monitor the streets and track anyone asking for money at red lights, near banks, or in mosques. It also called on citizens to call GAM's emergency hotline numbers to report such misconduct, or to file a complaint online through its official website, GAM's spokesperson Mazen Farajeen said.

Head of the Random sale Control Department Samer Hatamleh said that the municipality has arrested over 163 beggars posing as waste collectors in the last quarter of 2017. 

According to Hatamleh, the phenomenon usually increases during Ramadan and Eid, when people’s will to be generous is "at its peak". "This creates the perfect opportunity for beggars to manipulate people’s emotions and goodwill into giving them money," he told The Jordan Times. 

The official said that impersonating refuse collectors is a "smart move" that follows the municipality's fierce campaigns in the past to track down beggars which resulted in the public’s distrust — and almost absolute refusal — to give beggars money.

Posing as waste collectors is a feasible alternative, as their outfits can usually be bought in the black market, or be borrowed from an actual refuse collector, Hatamleh explained, noting that the process is "fairly easy" as waste collectors are given a new outfit every six months.

Residents in Amman have commended the campaign, saying the rise in this phenomenon is "irritating".

“Before I knew that there was any impersonation, I’ve always felt that giving money to a beggar is one thing, but giving it to a refuse collector is another. With beggars, I know that I’m being played, and that I’m only helping them continue asking for money instead of getting a job. But, with a waste collector, I assume that his job is not paying enough, and he wouldn’t ask for help if he didn’t need to," said Lara Ahmed, a 26-year-old living in Hay Nazal.

However, Ahmed Sameer, another Amman resident, told The Jordan Times that he knew something was up even before the municipality started warning citizens.

“There has always been one refuse collector working in our area. I knew him very well, and he never asked for money or anything similar. On the first day of Ramadan, someone I did not recognise was dressed as a waste collector and knocked on our door asking for a 'Ramadan Treat'," he remembered, adding "I knew something wasn’t right, because I had never seen him before so I didn’t give him any money, and I warned our neighbours not to do so either.”

The mischief by those individuals has actually been harming the city’s real refuse workers, who are now under close scrutiny because of this issue, according to several of them who spoke to The Jordan Times. 

“There are always good people in the area I work in who hand me money on occasions, without me asking. After the new campaign and the municipality’s strict rules, I cannot accept that much-needed money as I would get immediately fired if someone were to report me," Hassan, a waste collector, told The Jordan Times.